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Please excuse duplication. This mailing has been sent to a variety
of lists with an interest in library technology and librarianship.
Thank you.
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Technological advances over the past three decades have created new
challenges and opportunities for libraries and librarians. As a
result of automation and computerization, services to users have
changed, the management of libraries has evolved, the roles of
librarians have multiplied, and the impact of libraries on their
client groups has grown. This new publication, Annals of
Information Technology and Librarianship, seeks to be a forum for
the dissemination of research and scholarly articles on the impact
that information technology has had and is continuing to have on
libraries. The publication is peer-reviewed and seeks to offer its
readers highly relevant and thought provoking articles that will
enhance their understanding of how libraries and librarians are
responding to the changes caused by information technologies.

PREMIER ISSUE SPECIAL TOPIC:

Information Technology, Libraries, and the New Millennium

As one millennium draws to a close and a new one begins, there is
an opportunity to reflect on how far libraries have come and on
where we would like them to go. Throughout the history of libraries,
there has been an acceptance and use of a variety of information
technologies. The new millennium presents new opportunities to
exploit a ever-growing array of information technologies in the
provision of library services.

The editors are seeking submission of manuscripts that address the
issues surrounding the use of information technologies within
libraries. Manuscripts which address questions such as the following
are especially encouraged:

What will the opportunities be for the expanded use of information
technologies in libraries?
How will information technologies be used or misused?
What will be the impact of information technologies on libraries,
librarians, and library users?
How will the organization of the library change?
What is the future of librarianship?
What have been the historic impacts of information technologies on
libraries?
How will information technologies change the role of libraries and
librarians?
How will education for librarianship change as a result of emerging
technologies?
Will instruction of patrons differ in the new millennium?
Will new information technologies challenge the existence of libraries?

For more information, point your browser to
http://www.idea-group.com/libann.htm, or contact the editors.

To submit manuscripts, please see the submission guidelines at
http://www.idea-group.com/libman.htm, or contact the editors.

Rod Bustos, Georgia State University
Anita Cook, OhioLINK
Eric Delozier, Penn State Harrisburg
Pat Ensor, University of Houston
Shelagh Fisher, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK)
Patricia Fletcher, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
D. Kaye, Gapen, Northern Lights Inc.
Susan Hocker, Miami University
Peggy Johnson, University of Minnesota
Tom Klinger, Kent State University
Lucy Te-Chu Lee, National Taiwan University (ROC)
Thomas Leonhardt, Oregon Institute of Technology
Poping Lin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michael Lloyd-Williams, University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UK)
William McHugh, Northwestern University
Keith Morgan, North Carolina State University
Ian Richard Murray, Loughborough University (UK)
William Ptacek, King County Library System
Laverna Saunders, Salem State College
Ann Margaret Scholz-Crane, Rutgers University
Charles Schwartz, University of Massachusetts at Boston
Pamela Snelson, Franklin and Marshall College
Amanda Spink, University of North Texas
Lawrence Woods, University of Iowa

The ARIADNE project, supported by the European Union Telematics for
Applications Program, has recently published its
recommendations for educational metadata <http://ariadne.unil.ch.

ARIADNE's primary goal is to foster the share and reuse of electronic
pedagogical material, both by universities and corporations.
For this purpose, a distributed database of reusable pedagogical
documents has been set up, called the Knowledge Pool System.
Currently, eight nodes of this system are operational throughout
Europe and many more will be set up in the near future.

The Knowledge Pool System holds both the the pedagogical documents and
detailed descriptions of these documents. The metadata are grouped in
mandatory and optional categories. They cover

The ARIADNE metadata set explicitly refers to the Dublin core elements and
adds additional elements to this base set, based on experience in practical
experiments during the last two years.

A software tool has been developed for insertion of metadata by end users. The
same tool, developed as a Java application, can also be used to query the
Knowledge Pool System. Courses can be built that reuse the documents stored in
the Knowledge Pool System and, from the course description, a course Web site
for student access is generated automatically.

The metadata specification, the Knowledge Pool System and the associated tools
have been experimented with extensively over the past two years, both in
academic and in corporate environments. A user group community is actively
involved in
these experiments and influences further developments. Interested parties can
join the user group to gain access to the results of the ARIADNE project.
(Further details are available on the Web site.)

The ARIADNE team is deeply involved in an IEEE standardisation process
regarding educational metadata, and has agreed on a memorandum of
understanding with
the U.S. Educom sponsored Instructional Management Systems (IMS) project.

Comments and reactions by the Dublin core community are most welcome and
can be sent to the undersigned.

Following is text of press release and URL for the report of the Electronic
Commerce Expert Group.

http://law.gov.au/aghome/advisory/eceg/ecegreport.html

Steve Orlowski

LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

The launch today of the report of the Electronic Commerce Expert Group
entitled Electronic Commerce Building the Legal Framework is another step
toward Australia being a world-leader in adapting to the information
economy.
The general legal problem facing the development of electronic commerce in
Australia is how to develop the framework which already exists for paper
transactions so that it can also be used for electronic transactions.

This report makes recommendations to the Government on the nature and scope
of potential legislation to support and encourage electronic commerce.
There is nothing in this report to suggest that a suite of so called
cyberlaws is required to encourage electronic commerce.
Subject to some modifications necessary to take account of technological
changes, our legal system, by and large, does provide the certainty
necessary for on-line commerce.
The Expert Group's recommendations to resolve the legal issues they
identified are based upon two important principles:
* paper based commerce and electronic commerce should be
treated equally by the law; and
* the law should not discriminate between different forms of
technology.
The Report's principle recommendations are:
* that the Commonwealth should enact electronic commerce
framework legislation, the content of which should generally reflect the
provisions of the Model Law on Electronic Commerce developed by the United
Nations; and
* that a detailed legislative electronic signature regime is
not required at this stage.
The Government places a high level of importance on the development of
electronic commerce in Australia and we are committed to seeing Australia
play a leading role in the development of the on-line economy.

I am ensuring that all steps necessary are taken to minimise any legal
impediments to electronic commerce and I established the Electronic Commerce
Expert Group in JulyÜ1997 to:
* consider the legal issues arising from the development of
electronic commerce; and
* report on the form and scope of the appropriate arrangements
for regulation, if any, of electronic commerce.
The membership of the Expert Group included representatives from industry
associations, business, the legal profession and government.
I am pleased that so many of these experts were able to freely give their
time to be a part of the Expert Group, and I thank them for their work on
the Report.
The Government will respond after carefully considering the Expert Group's
recommendations and public comments on the report.
I encourage everyone who is interested in this area to read the report and
provide comments on its recommendations.

Media contact: Nicholas Harford (02) 6277
7300

* The report will be made available to the public for comment until the end
of May through the Internet on the Attorney-General Department's "Window on
the Law" Internet site.
To facilitate this an email link will be established from the Internet site
to enable comments to be sent directly to the Attorney-General's Department.
The Internet address for the report is:

http://law.gov.au/aghome/advisory/eceg/ecegreport.html

The executive summary of the report is available immediately and the full
text of the report will be available in the near future. Copies of the
Report will also be available from the Attorney General's Department.

On behalf of the Australian library community, the National Library of
Australia has developed the Australian Libraries Gateway to enable you to
delve into the wealth of information held in libraries throughout
Australia by visiting one web site. The first release of the Gateway is
at http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries

You can use the Australian Libraries Gateway to:
* find all the libraries in your local area (their address, phone
number, access conditions etc) by using the basic search function or the
map facility
* locate all the public or university (etc) libraries in Australia or
just those in a particular region of Australia
* link to the web site of a library and discover the resources it
provides and the services it offers
* search the catalogues of libraries throughout Australia
access Australia's cultural heritage via on-line exhibitions, events,
image collections, and oral- histories nd, in the future:
* search a directory of catalogues of libraries and other cultural
agencies using the widely accepted Z39.50 information retrieval standard
* link to Internet subject guides maintained on library web sites
throughout Australia - in this way, libraries can help users by directing
them to some of the most useful resources available on the Internet
* discover information on the subject strengths of Australian
Libraries, based on the Australian Conspectus database

Currently there are more than 2 500 libraries in the Australian Libraries
Gateway database. To be a 'one-stop-shop' for Australian libraries, we
hope to include information about every library in Australia. If you know
of a library that is missing from the database, please tell us!

We plan to regularly update the 'Whats New' page of the ALG site, so check
this page regularly to learn about the enhancements, bugs, and general
update information about the site.

The Australian Libraries Gateway forms part of the Australian Department
of Communications and the Arts, Australia's Cultural Network project.

For further information, suggestions or feedback, contact the Australian
Libraries Gateway team at the National Library of Australia:

The Australian Society of Indexers is running their Web indexing again this
year. Dwight Walker, immediate past Webmaster of the Australian Society of
Indexers, and Maureen Henninger, from the School of Library, Information and
Archival Sciences at UNSW, will be the judges.

Closing date: November 30, 1998
Anyone may enter.

If you index Web sites, create subject indexes to the Web in general, create
online bibliographies with indexes, or a host of other forms of Web indexing
please send us your URL and a description about yourself, the audience and
how you created it.

You need not be an HTML whiz to enter. You can be part of a team that
created a Web index.

Prizes include:
year's membership to the Australian Society of Indexers
an indexing book ($50 AUD) (to be confirmed)
year's subscription to The Indexer (to be confirmed)
===================================
Details and an application form can be found at:

Congratulations! Your page:
http://aztec.lib.utk.edu/libres/
has been selected to receive a Links2Go Key Resource award in the
Libraries and Information Science topic (If you received a previous email from us, sorry!
We had
a little snafu in the topic name).

The Links2Go Key Resource award is both exclusive and objective. Fewer
than one page in one thousand will ever be selected for
inclusion. Further, unlike most awards that rely on the subjective
opinion of "experts," many of whom have only looked at tens or
hundreds of thousands of pages in bestowing their awards, the Links2Go
Key Resource award is completely objective and is based on an analysis
of millions of web pages. During the course of our analysis, we
identify which links are most representative of each of the thousands
of topics in Links2Go, based on how actual page authors, like
yourself, index and organize links on their pages. In fact, the Key
Resource award is so exclusive, even we don't qualify for it (yet ;)!

Please visit:
http://www.links2go.com/award/Libraries_and_Information_Science
to find out more about this award, and to download graphics if you wish
to display this award on your page.

I am very pleased to forward this announcement of the publication of the
final report of the ARL ILL/DD Performance Measures Study.

Mary Jackson

ARL Announces....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1998

ARL IDENTIFIES BEST PRACTICES IN INTERLIBRARY LOAN OPERATIONS

Washington, D.C. - Eight interlibrary loan (ILL) departments of North
American research libraries have been identified as high-performing
operations in a two-year study of interlibrary loan and document delivery
operations by the Association of Research Libraries. Colorado State
University, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, Ohio
University, and two ILL units of the University of Illinois-Chicago
emerged as high-performing borrowing operations. The University of
Alberta and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are the two research
libraries with high-performing lending operations.

A number of best practices were identified in high-performing
operations: these libraries encourage or require patrons to submit
requests electronically; their ILL departments are managed by support
staff supervisors; and they make extensive use of technology and
software, such as OCLC's ILL Fee Management service to charge or pay ILL
invoices or RLG's Ariel document delivery software for Internet users. In
addition, the libraries that offer user-initiated borrowing have lower
costs and faster turnaround time than libraries that have staff-mediated
ILL requests.

These findings are reported in Measuring the Performance of
Interlibrary Loan Operations in North American Research and College
Libraries (ARL, May 1998). This publication reports the major findings
and makes recommendations for further research and applications of the
ILL/DD Performance Measures Study. Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, the study was undertaken in collaboration with the Council of
Library and Information Resources. Mary E. Jackson, ARL Access and
Delivery Services Consultant, served as the principal investigator. Data
from 97 research and 22 college libraries were analyzed using four
performance measures: the direct costs a library incurs when filling an
ILL request (borrowing or lending), the percentage of borrowing or lending
requests successfully filled, the number of calendar days it takes a
library to complete a borrowing request, and the level of user
satisfaction with the borrowing service.

Summary findings indicate that the overall performance of ILL
operations in college libraries was better than ILL operations in research
libraries. Research libraries spend an average combined cost (borrowing
and lending) of $27.83 per filled ILL request, while college libraries
spend an average combined cost of $19.33. The study was unable to
identify the reason for the statistically significant difference between
research and college library costs, but it did determine that for both
groups, staff costs account for between two-thirds and three-quarters of
the unit cost. In addition, the study found that as volume of lending
increases the lending unit cost decreases; the same relationship does not
exist for borrowing unit costs.

The study further compared performance of 63 libraries that
participated in this study and in the 1992 ARL/RLG Interlibrary Loan Cost
Study and found that, when adjusted for inflation, borrowing unit costs in
research libraries have decreased 13% and lending unit costs dropped 21%.

The findings also confirm the priority needs of the North American
Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (NAILDD) Project to promote
improved services through the development and adoption of standards, and
through cooperation with the private sector in the creation of
comprehensive and flexible management software and online billing and
payment systems.

The report lays out strategies for how libraries may improve local
performance that center around staffing, technology, and administration of
ILL operations. To assist ILL managers in applying these strategies, ARL
will conduct workshops on evaluating performance with further analyses of
local practices and implementing the changes recommended in the study.
Shirley Baker, Vice-Chancellor for Information Technology and Dean of
University Libraries, Washington University in St. Louis, and chair of the
study's advisory committee, notes that "The next step is action-action to
make not incremental but astounding improvements in the performance of
every library's interlibrary loan unit. We have learned from the best
performers that even the best can get better, and the benefits accrue to
us all."

The Association of Research Libraries is a not-for-profit
membership organization comprising 121 libraries of North American
research institutions. Its mission is to shape and influence forces
affecting the future of research libraries in the process of scholarly
communication. ARL programs and services promote equitable access to and
effective use of recorded knowledge in support of teaching, research,
scholarship, and community service. The Association articulates the
concerns of research libraries and their institutions, forges coalitions,
influences information policy development, and supports innovation and
improvements in research library operations. ARL operates as a forum for
the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action. More
information is available at: <http://www.arl.org/.

# # #

Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations
in North American Research and College Libraries
Mary E. Jackson
May 1998 ¥ ISBN 0-918006-33-3 ¥ 122 pp. ¥ $45 plus $6 shipping and handling

ORDER FORM

Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations
in North American Research and College Libraries
Mary E. Jackson
May 1998 ¥ ISBN 0-918006-33-3 ¥ 122 pp. ¥ $45 plus $6 shipping and handling

SPECIAL OFFER: Receive Measuring the Performance and the June 1993
book, ARL/RLG Interlibrary Loan Cost Study: A Joint Effort by the
Association of Research Libraries and the Research Libraries Group, by
Marilyn M. Roche for $50 plus $6 shipping and handling.

PAYMENT INFORMATION
Orders must be prepaid; ARL members may be billed. Make check or money
order payable in U.S. funds to the ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH
LIBRARIES, Federal ID #52-0784198-N.

Five new reports based on research funded by the Research and
Innovation Centre are now available. Further details, including
ordering information, are available from the Centre's web pages:
www.bl.uk/services/ric/.

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New measures for the new library: a social audit of public libraries
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This report demonstrates the social impact of the public library.
Documenting the experience of library users, staff, and local
politicians it shows that public library services promote social
cohesion and create confidence in individuals and communities. Public
libraries are community landmarks that reinforce community identity.
They also help individuals, especially older people, overcome the
problems of social isolation and loneliness. The recognised and
established functions of the public library in terms of reading,
education, information, culture and leisure also remain important. The
report argues that qualitative data, properly gathered, are valid
evidence and should be used as such by politicians and professionals.
The report provides policy makers, practitioners and academics with a
framework for understanding the social impact of the library. This can
be used as a practical tool by library managers to identify the
factors that can help and hinder the achievement of social objectives.

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Electronic serials in public libraries
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This project investigated the impact of electronic serials on UK
public libraries. The current provision and promotion of electronic
serials is described and it is noted that the majority of those
provided were newspapers in CD-ROM format; very few authorities had
taken out a subscription to an Internet-based serial. The benefits and
pitfalls presented by electronic serials and the main management
issues are also explored. It was found that there was a lack of policy
documents relating to electronic serials and that staff are facing
serious problems supporting electronic resources (it was noted that
the lower levels of ICT training and awareness in branch libraries was
a particular problem). The research has also shown that most public
libraries are not measuring the use of electronic serials; anecdotal
evidence suggests that, while use of serials on CD-ROM is healthy,
usage levels of Internet-based serials are very modest. The report
also proposes performance indicators which may be applied to
electronic serials. The main conclusions of the research are that
there will be benefits for library users if libraries are able to
extend their collections of serials on CD-ROM and, most importantly,
if they begin to provide co-ordinated access to Internet content,
including serials.

------------------------------
Academic library effectiveness
------------------------------
The remit of this investigation was to develop a small set of
performance indicators which would enable funding bodies,
vice-chancellors and other senior university managers to compare
library effectiveness across the UK higher education sector. The
report recommends a small set of management statistics (as opposed to
performance indicators) covering per capita expenditures, seat
hours per week per user, lending and user education data. The report
also recommends the provision of "contextual" data largely on the size
of the institution to facilitate interpretation of the management
statistics. Recommendations for further work on the electronic
library, benchmarking, user satisfaction, document availability,
information services, user education, impact, in-house use and access
vs holding are also included.

--------------------------
Libraries in the workplace
--------------------------
This report presents the findings of the first major questionnaire
survey of library and information services in the UK workplace.
Included are government organisations, professional associations and
charities, and the corporate sectors of pharmaceutics, finance,
energy, management consultancy and law. There are data on the
organisations and their users, staffing, electronic and printed
resources, interlending, performance and expenditure. Sectoral
estimates are included for key data.

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Information policy in the electronic age
----------------------------------------
This book brings together many of the papers presented at the
Information Policy Briefing Lectures, organised by the Research and
Innovation Centre. The briefings illuminate current detailed research
into the dynamic world of information policy and are designed to help
policy makers in both national and local governments as well as in the
information industry. The contributions cover a diverse range of
issues including: the US national information infrastructure, current
UK and EU policy issues, information reliability, and the public
library in the next century.

The British Library Research and Innovation Centre has
published two new reports:

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Beyond book issues: the social potential of library projects
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This study reviews a number of library-based community
initiatives which were submitted for the Library Association Holt
Jackson Community Initiative Award between 1992 and 1997. The
report assesses the extent to which such initiatives produce social
benefits, and seeks to identify the factors which may be critical
for success and sustainability in these projects. A wide range of
impacts on individuals and communities is identified in terms of
personal development, social cohesion, community empowerment,
community identity, imagination and creativity, and health and
well-being.

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Project management tools and techniques in UK university
libraries
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The report examines the use of project management techniques and
software in UK university libraries. A survey of university
libraries, eLib and NFF projects provides the initial national
context and then a focused case study approach is used. A simple
project methodology is developed and applied in two university
libraries; a comparison is also made with another university
where a different approach was taken. Project software packages
are evaluated. A training programme in the methodology and
software is described. The effect of using these techniques is
evaluated by comparing project participants' views of previous
projects with those managed using the new tools and techniques.

Further details, including ordering information, are
available from the Centre's web pages:
www.bl.uk/services/ric/

The Research and Innovation Centre also publishes a free Bulletin
three times a year. The Bulletin provides: the latest research
news; features on work funded by the Centre; articles outlining
research findings and their implications for library and
information work; lists of new awards for research and new
publications. Issue 20 has just been published and its contents
include:

- details of the research strategy unveiled by the Library and
Information Commission and the British Library
- an assessment of whether the predictions made for the
publishing industry when the Net Book Agreement was abandoned
have come true
- a report on recently completed research into the use of the
Internet by journalists
- an examination of marketing information and strategy in the UK
financial services sector
- information on a study aiming to give public librarians the
skills needed for successful research
- details of studies into digital materials preservation

Recently the European Commission granted EBLIDA funding under the
Telematics for Libraries Programme for the extension of the European
Copyright User Platform (ECUP+) to all Eastern and Central European
countries that have signed agreements with the European Union (Bulgaria,
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia, Slovenia). The contract for CECUP was signed on 25 June 1998 and
the initiative will have a duration of 18 months. CECUP has the following
objectives:

1. To make librarians in the accession countries aware of the implications
of copyright in electronic services building upon the results achieved
under ECUP and ECUP+. Workshops will be organised in each of the ten
countries to interrelate awareness raising, identification of specific
copyright problems and finding solutions in an effective way.

2. To discuss user rights in electronic services and licensing principles
for the use of electronic information with rightholders.

3. To raise awareness in Central and Eastern European countries about the
established European Focal Point for copyright questions and information on
EU legislative developments in this area.

4. To reinforce the position of libraries in discussions about copyright
with the appropriate bodies.

A Central and Eastern European Copyright User Platform will be set up,
consisting of the library associations of the ten association countries.
Their role will be to organise a workshop in each of the countries, to
nominate each a representative to a Steering Group, and to give input and
feedback to this Steering Group. The Steering Group will assist in
identifying special copyright problems for libraries in Central and Eastern
European countries. It will also function as the intermediary in first
discussions with rightholders on user rights in electronic publications and
results of the workshops.

Tuula Haavisto, CECUP project manager says: "In the digital age
pan-European harmonisation of intellectual property laws is essential.
Awareness about electronic copyright helps to fight piracy, which is still
widespread in some Central and Eastern European countries."

"Awareness among librarians will support them in fulfilling their role as
gateways to the global information society for citizens and specialists,
which is an urgent need in the process of catching up with progress in EU
countries."

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

1. EBLIDA:
The European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations
represents 95.000 libraries throughout Europe. It was founded in 1992 to
lobby for the interests of information professionals at European level.

2. ECUP:
In October 1994, EBLIDA was granted funding by the European Commission to
set up a European Copyright User Platform under the Telematics for
Libraries Programme. As a first stage, copyright awareness workshops were
conducted in 14 Member States, a Steering Group was set up and a position
paper on user rights in electronic publications was drafted and discussed
with representatives of rightholders.

3. ECUP+
In January 1996, EBLIDA was granted further funding for a follow-up project
with a duration of three years. A second series of workshops were
conducted, further discussions were held with rightholders representatives,
a copyright focal point was set up and legislative recommendations were
drafted.
The ECUP website is at: http://www.kaapeli.fi/~eblida/ecup/

INTRODUCTION
In recent years university libraries have included a growing number of
digital information resources in their collections. At present there
is no legal obligation nor are there formal mechanisms for ensuring
that such digital information is preserved for posterity. As
libraries' reliance upon such resources increases, they become
stakeholders in ensuring that those resources are maintained over the
longer term. They are responsible for ensuring that these resources
may be as accessible to users in 10, 20 or 200 years time as they are
now.

Just as academic libraries have an ongoing responsibility for the
preservation and access of paper-based resources, they now have a new
and more complex responsibility for digital resources. For digital
materials, unlike paper, a library continues to have responsibility
for ensuring long-term access to them irrespective of whether the
burden for physically preserving that resource falls directly to the
library or to a third party agency. For example in the case of an
electronic journal, a publisher might have the ultimate role of
preserving the physical digital object but the research library is
responsible for providing long term access to this material for its
researchers.

The need to devise strategies for digital preservation is both
pressing and immediate and these strategies will need to encompass all
forms of digital information resources.

DESCRIPTION
With these issues in mind the Cedars project aims to address
strategic, methodological and practical issues and will provide
guidance for libraries in best practice for digital preservation.
In the UK, CURL (The Consortium of University Research Libraries) is
uniquely placed to lead this project. Digital preservation is a key
issue for all its members. Under the overall direction of the CURL
Management Board, Cedars will be based across three lead sites
(Oxford, Leeds and Cambridge). Wider involvement from the community
will come through focus groups, workshops and discussion lists.
CEDARS is a three year project funded by the Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC) through the Electronic Libraries Programme
(eLib).

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The project aims to investigate strategies which will ensure that the
digital information resources typically included in library
collections may, with other non-digital objects, be preserved over the
longer term. It order to achieve this aim the project plans to

* promote awareness about the importance of digital preservation,
both amongst university libraries and their users, and amongst the
data creating and data supplying communities upon which they depend.

* identify, document and disseminate strategic frameworks within which
individual libraries can develop collection management policies which
are appropriate to their needs and which can guide the necessary
decision-making to safeguard the long-term viability of any digital
resources which are included in their collections.

*investigate, document and promote methods appropriate to the
long-term preservation of different classes of digital resources
typically included in library collections, and to develop costed and
scaleable models, There is an enormous range of digital resources
(e.g. text, sound, pictures, moving images). In focusing on the
following categories ,the project intends to identify techniques which
can be generalised and extended to the full range of digital
materials:
digitised primary resources
electronic journals
large online databases
electronic ephemera
digital resources in which the intellectual content in bound to
structure, form and behaviour

In meeting its objectives, the project intends, wherever possible, to
make use of work that has already been done and to build upon existing
expertise in digital preservation and digital collection management.

KEY DELIVERABLES
Key deliverables of the project include:

*guidelines for developing collection management policies which will
ensure the long-term viability of any digital resources included in
the collection;

*demonstrator projects to test and promote the technical and
organisational feasibility of a chosen strategy for digital
preservation;

*methodological guidelines developed by the demonstrator projects
providing guidance about how to preserve different classes of digital
resources;

*clearly articulated preferences about data formats, content models
and compression techniques which are most readily and cost-effectively
preserved;

*publications of benefit to the whole higher education community,
available on the WWW

WEB SITE:

As project work evolves, all Cedars working papers and documentation
will be available at:

Cedars Web Site:
http://www.curl.ac.uk

So watch this space......

General information about the JISC Electronic Libraries Programme
(eLib) can be found at:

BACKGROUND
Many of the recommendations of the Follett Report1 related to ways in
which the use of information technology in the electronic library can
help to alleviate some of the problems of university libraries today.
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) established the
Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) as a direct response to the
Follett Report. The programme has a budget of about £15 million over
3 years, and its objectives include the use of IT to improve delivery
of information through increased use of electronic library services,
to allow academic libraries to cope better with growth, to explore
different models of intellectual property management and to encourage
new methods of scholarly publishing. Now in its third phase, eLib is
funding integration projects to build exemplar hybrid libraries (those
which provide access to both digital and non-digital materials)
including several Z39.50 pilot projects to link library catalogues.
Phase 3 will also directly address issues of concern for the long-term
preservation of and access to digital resources.

The New York Public Library invites applications for fellowships from
September 1999
to May 2000 in the first year of its new Center for Scholars and
Writers. To be housed,
with individual offices, in two spacious rooms now being readied in
the landmark library
at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The Center will provide
opportunities to explore the
rich and diverse collections of the New York Public Library. The
Center for Scholars
and Writers will also serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas among
the fellows,
invited guests, the wider academic and cultural communities, and the
interested public.

The Fellowships are open to scholars, non-academic research
professionals, scientists
engaged with the humanities, and creative writers of demonstrated
achievement
regardless of nationality, whose proposed subjects will benefit
directly from access to the
Library's collections at the Center for the Humanities. There will be
fifteen fellows. Five
fellowships will be awarded in conjunction with the American Council
of Learned
Societies.

The Library's Fifth Avenue facility, now called The Center for the
Humanities, is
renowned for the extraordinary comprehensives of its collections and
is one of the
world's preeminent resources for study in the fields of anthropology,
art, geography,
history, languages and literatures of the world, philosophy, politics,
popular culture,
psychology, religion, sociology, and sports.

Fellows will be required to be in continuous residence for the length
of the award and to
participate as much as possible in Center activities including daily
lunches, readings,
lectures, colloquia, symposia, and conferences. Each will be
responsible for a public
presentation_a reading, a paper, a lecture_ of publishable quality.
The fellows' stipend
will be $50,000 and, when necessary, a housing allowance.

The deadline for submission of applications is October 2, 1998. For
further information
or to request a brochure outlining the holdings of the Library (which
should precede the
submission of an application), please write to the Center for
Scholars and Writers,
Peter Gay, Director or
Pamela Leo, Assistant Director
The New York Public Library
Room 103
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
New York, New York 10018-2788

Applications Invited for the Eugene Garfield Postdoctoral Fellowship in the
History of Scientific Information

Philadelphia-The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) invites applications
for the 1999-2000 Eugene Garfield Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of
Scientific Information. The Garfield Fellow will spend nine months in
residence at CHF. The fellow will create a historiographical and
bibliographical guide to the field, with emphasis on twentieth-century
developments; conduct oral histories with two to four pioneers in the
development of scientific information; and identify emerging research
opportunities in the field.

Candidates should possess a Ph.D. in the chemical sciences, in information
science, or in the history of science, technology, or medicine.
Applications should include a curriculum vitae and a two-page letter
outlining the applicant's competencies in the field of scientific
information and the relevance of the Garfield Fellowship to his or her
career plans. In addition, applicants should arrange for two letters of
reference to be sent directly to CHF.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation was established in 1982 by joint action of
the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers. Public education programs and academic initiatives are
undertaken through the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry. They
include traveling exhibits, oral histories, high-school teacher workshops,
publications, lectures and seminars, archival projects, and other
appropriate endeavors to publicize the achievements of chemical scientists
and the chemical process industries. Basic research in the history of the
chemical sciences, scholarly publications, and the building of a strong
chemical presence in the world of academic and public history are emphasized.

The Othmer Library of Chemical History houses a rapidly growing collection
of primary published sources on chemistry in the last hundred years,
maintains a wide array of reference books and other secondary literature,
collects the archives of professional organizations and the personal papers
of outstanding chemists and industrialists, and maintains an extensive
pictorial collection. It serves as an information resource for the chemical
community and the media and supports the programs of the Beckman Center.

For more information on the Chemical Heritage Foundation, visit our
Internet pages at www.chemheritage.org

The July 14th, 1988, The President of the French Republic
launched the project of the "Trhs Grande Bibliothhque". Ten years after
nobody - seems it - do not be afraid by digital
technologies insertion in the libraries.

On the contrary this insertion is intend to preserve the book and to
serve it : scanning of precious books, network to federate large
libraries, multimedia as knowledge compound, acces far away open to any
public.

Manifestly a large computerization mouvement is developing in
France : obviously the Bibliothhque nationale de France (BdF),
but also Lyon, Marseille, a lot of regional and institutional
projects and too, entreprise library and document center.

In parallele the book industry is not indebted : digital process "from
autor to reader", electronic trade from the Web, composite
and hyper-document base for technical or legal documentation
sectors, etc.

To complement these mouvements, but more recently and more, in
fact theoricaly the knowledge management multiforme and
multilingual is drawing as an immaterial field where digital
technologies could bring a strong contribution.

All these statements bring us to dedicate a special issue of <<
Document numirique review to digital library with intend to
make a point on the more recent technologies and their
organizational incidences for the professionals and for the
publics.

Our ambition is to publish an referential Issue where technology
and management are combined to library computerization in the
goal to prapare the future.

Management topics :
* how to get new publics,
* create library network,
* to stock or to find information,
* use case.

Prospective topics :
* semantic network, what does it mean ?
* knowledge management, for who and how ?
* ubiquitous library, for who and how ?
* from book materiality to intangible information,
* what future for entreprise documentation center.

(*) It is ask to the autors to bring their intention to G.
Dupoirier by e-mail with the title of the submission and an
abstract of ten lines.

Some recommandations
* The submission should respect the review stylesheet available
on:
http://www.editions-hermes.fr.
* Articles are accepted in French and in English for non
French-speaking authors. They do not exceed twenty pages.
* The authors do not forget that our review is mainly read by
engineers and project managers. The the bibliograhy should be
easy to find, it does not exceed a page for each article.

The latest issue of 'Elsevier Science Information" (#9, winter 1998)
describes the PEAK Project: Pricing Electronic Access to Knowledge. In
cooperation with the University of Michigan Libraries, Elsevier is
looking at three alternatives: 1) per article, i.e., individual users
purchase unlimited access to a specific article for a fixed price, 2)
traditional subscriptions and 3) generalized subscription, i.e.
institutional purchase - at the beginning of the year - unlimited access
to sets of 120 articles selected after-the-fact by the users (individual
users can purchase smaller bundles).

You, too, can be a participant as the PEAK research project is
finalizing its list of partcipating institutions. If selected, your
institution can pay the University of Michigan a IPL (Institutional
Participation License) for the use of the service. But wait, don't get
your hopes up, this access only allows you to search the database.
Access to the full articles themselves is only allowed after you are
assigned to one of the experimental groups with regard to the three
product- pricing alternatives described above.

Doesn't that just take the cake? Not only can we subscribe to what some
consider grossly over priced journals but now we can also pay to help
Elsevier conduct their marketing research on new ways to extract our
subscription dollars. With that thought, I had better bite my tongue.
Please forgive the duplication.

Introduction and Overview
One of a set of pages forming the text of Annex 2 to a <lt980316.htm>European
Commission letter inviting early
inputs regarding the workplan for the <../index.htm>Fifth Framework Programme. For
background and overall
structure of the text see <lt980316.htm>the letter and associated documents. [Text
in square brackets = comments
by European Telework Online].

We regret that we are not able to answer individual questions about the Fifth Framework
Programme; we do
monitor and respond to discussion in the European Telework Online discussion list, please
see
<../../discuss/discuss.htm>http://www.eto.org.uk/discuss/discuss.htm for details of
how to participate in this.
Please report any errors in these pages to
<mailto:eto-info@eto.org.uk>eto-info@eto.org.uk.
----------------

We are undergoing a fundamental transformation: from an industrial society to the
information society.
Information society technologies increasingly pervade all industrial and societal
activities and are accelerating the
globalisation of both economies, in particular by providing SMEs with affordable access to
the global
marketplace, and societies.

Europes industrial competitiveness, its jobs, its quality of life and the
sustainability of growth depend on it being
at the leading edge of the development and take-up of information society technologies.
Also, by enabling
communities in remote and rural areas to overcome isolation and to compete in the global
economy, information
society technologies contribute to cohesion in the European Union.

At the same time, the technologies underpinning the development of the information society
are in rapid
evolution. Advances in information processing and communications are opening up exciting
new possibilities.
There is a shift from stand-alone systems to networked information and processes.
Digitisation is resulting in the
convergence of information processing, communications and media. Content is of increasing
significance.
However, the increasing diversity and complexity of systems is also presenting new
challenges for their
development and use.

It will not be possible to realise the full potential of the information society in Europe
with only todays
technologies, systems and applications. Key requirements such as usability, dependability,
interoperability and,
above all, affordability are far from being sufficiently met for the broad deployment of
information society
technologies in all areas. Continuous efforts are required, in research, technological
development, demonstration
and technology take-up.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list
Strategic Objectives of the Programme
The strategic objective of this programme would be to realise the benefits of the
information society for Europe
both by
* accelerating its emergence and by
* ensuring that the needs of individuals and enterprises are met.

The programme would have four inter-related specific objectives, which would both focus
the technology
developments and enable the close articulation between research and policy needed for a
coherent and inclusive
information society. [the term would have is used throughout the text because at this time
the programme is
subject to final agreement between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council - read
this as: if the
programme were to be agreed it would have . . . etc. For all practical purposes we believe
it is safe to assume that
the programme will go forward in very much the overall way foreseen in this text, since
the draft has been agreed
in principle by all three parties]
* For the private individual the objective would be to meet the needs and expectations of
European citizens for
high-quality, affordable general-interest services.

* Addressing the requirements and concerns of Europes enterprises, workers and
consumers the objective would
be to enable both individuals and organisations to innovate and be more effective and
efficient in their work and
business.

* Multimedia content is central to the information society; the objective here would be to
confirm Europe as a
leading force in this field and enable it to realise the potential of its creativity and
culture.

* For the essential technologies and infrastructures that form the building blocks of the
information society the
objective would be to drive their development, enhance their applicability and accelerate
their take up in Europe.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list

Novelty of the approach
Community-funded research in information and communication technologies is integral to the
overall strategy of
the European Union for the information society, which was defined by the Action Plan
Europes way towards the
information society and revised in the Action Plan adopted in November 1996. In
response to the needs of the
next millennium, the Fifth Framework Programme introduces the Information Society
Technologies Programme.
[This is the new name for the combined programme, which effectively will replace the
Fourth Framework's
ESPRIT (for IT systems), ACTS (Advanced Communications), TAP (Telematics) etc]

The context, rationale and objectives of this programme necessitate a new approach, one
that introduces a single
and integrated programme which

* reflects the convergence of technologies and media and of industries and markets,
together with

* the increasing significance of content, and responds to the need to

* integrate research and development and take-up actions.

To this effect, this programme consists of a set of four key actions centred on the four
specific objectives and a
specific activity on longer-term or higher-risk research on future and emerging
technologies. These activities
complement each other and are derived by grouping together the technologies, systems,
applications and services
and the research and development and take-up actions with the greatest affinity or
interdependence. Each activity
has its own specific focus and priorities, however, the key issues of
* usability of technologies, systems, applications and services,
* interoperability at all levels,
* dependability and
* affordability
would be addressed ubiquitously throughout the programme.

The coordination and integration of the activities through a single work programme would
allow a "theme" that
cuts across the programme (e.g. interfaces, mobility or satellite-related activities) to
be addressed in a coherent
manner in more than one activity, each concentrating on and contributing from its
particular perspective.
Clustering and concertation would be used to focus, coordinate and integrate activities.

The technological scope of the activities would provide the flexibility to re-focus over
time, through the single
rolling work programme (defined in consultation with the key actors [this being oyur
opportunity to provide
input!]), to respond to changes in industrial and societal needs and the technological
context.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list

Socio-economic needs
A vast range of goods, services and processes are being transformed through the
integration and use of
information society technologies. Work would target the
* quantitative and
* qualitative
benefits that information society technologies offer in all industrial and societal
activities, from more competitive
methods of working and doing business to higher-quality, lower-cost general interest
services or new forms of
leisure and entertainment. Socio-economic research would be integrated throughout the
programme, to
support the take-up of information society technologies, and into its management. As too
would be work on
statistics, which are central to the information society and for which information society
technologies offer new
ways to attain the highest standards of quality and the widest and most rapid and
accessible dissemination.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list

European added value
Realising the full potential of the information society requires technologies,
infrastructures, applications and
services, accessible and usable by anyone, anywhere, anytime, whether it be for business
or individual use.
Collaborative research and technological development are needed to create both the
critical efforts and the
interoperability necessary to ensure this in Europe. Pan-European research is also needed
to ensure that content,
together with its creation and use, properly reflects the EUs cultural diversity and
many languages.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list

European competitiveness
Information society technologies are integrated in or support products and processes in
all sectors of the
economy. To be competitive in the global marketplace Europe needs to master both the
supply and use of
information society technologies. To this end, to accelerate the realisation of knowledge
as innovation, this
programme would integrate: actions to stimulate the take-up of information society
technologies with the research
and technological development to ensure that the conditions and requirements for their use
can be met. In addition
to demonstrations and trials, these include actions to stimulate the development and
diffusion of the skills
necessary to take-up research and development results (such as validations,
* assessments,
* awareness building,
* first-user actions and
* best-practice initiatives) and
* consensus building and standardisation activities.

<#contents.htm>Return to page contents list

Links with Other Programmes
Articulation with the other thematic programmes is based on concentrating the activities
concerned with the
development, demonstration and take-up of information society technologies in this
programme and
concentrating their deployment (application-specific integration research as well as use)
in specific domains in the
other thematic programmes. In particular:
* work addressing health or the environment, particularly that under the key action on
Systems and services for
the citizen, would be closely coordinated with the related work in both Programmes 1
and 3, in particular that in
the key actions on Health and the environment and Quality and management
of water;

* work related to transport and transport means, in particular that under the key action
on Systems and services
for the citizen, would be closely coordinated with the relevant work carried out
under Programme 3, in particular
that under the key actions on Sustainable mobility and intermodality and
New perspectives in aeronautics; and

* work addressing new methods of work and electronic commerce would be closely coordinated
with the
corresponding work on competitive and sustainable development in Programme 3. In addition,
the satellite-related
activities in this programme would be coordinated with related activities in Programmes 1
and 3 in the context of
the Commissions Space Coordination Group.

Reflecting the global nature of the information society, international cooperation would
play a major role in the
development and take-up of information society technologies. This needs to be reflected in
the participation in and
operation of this programme and in its linkages with the horizontal programme on
Confirming the international
role of European research addressing support for organisations from third countries.
Specific activities to
facilitate the participation of organisations from third countries and to maintain links
with European-trained
specialists in third countries would also be used in addressing the international
dimension of the programme.
Links with the horizontal programme on Innovation and participation of SMEs
and with EUREKA, Trans-
European Network actions and the Structural Funds would be used to establish routes and
mechanisms for the
further take-up and the deployment of results. The work on skills development and
socio-economic research
integrated in this programme would be enhanced through the appropriate links with the
horizontal programme on
Improving human potential and European Social Fund initiatives. This
programmes work on Research
networking would interface with the Improving human potential
programmes support for access to large
computing facilities and with the support for research infrastructure
activities of the other thematic programmes.
Where appropriate, work will complement and be coordinated with that in the COST
Programme.

Return to <#contents>page contents list Key Actions:
<ka01.htm>Systems and Services for the Citizen
<ka02.htm>New methods of work and electronic commerce
<ka03.htm>Multimedia content and tools
<ka04.htm>Essential technologies and infrastructures

Other actions:
<gen01.htm>Generic research and development of new technologies
<net01.htm>Research networking

Hi all,
The April 3, 1998 issue of SCIENCE has a very informative article
about the amount of actual coverage of the Web by the various search
engines. The analysis helps with understanding why searches with
each of the engines yield such different results.
Title: Searching the World Wide Web/ Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles.
pages 98-100.
Marj

GreyNet is an independent information and publishing service
specializing in the area of grey literature. In order to
further expand and develop its capabilities, GreyNet needs the
support of a much larger infrastructure. The ideal
organisation will be focused internationally and have serious
interest in the field of grey literature both in electronic
and print formats. Offers from both the private and public sector
are invited.

GreyNet, Grey Literature Network Service, has been operating
for the past six years within the structure of TransAtlantic,
a small enterprise in translation, editing and conference
organisation. While TransAtlantic provided a basis for GreyNet
to start-up, it cannot render the needed capital and
investment for GreyNet's further development and expansion.

The message below was originally posted to the Archives Listserv.
Members of ERECS-L may also find it of interest.
**********************************************************************

I am pleased to announce that the Indiana University Electronic Records
Home Page has been completely revised. The URL for this Home Page is:
http://www.indiana.edu/~libarche/index.html.
The IU Electronic Records Project was funded by NHPRC and was designed to
implement and test the "Functional Requirements for Evidence in
Recordkeeping" model developed by project personnel associated with the
University of Pittsburgh Electronic Records Project. The IU Electronic
Records Project began in June, 1995 and ended on December 31, 1997.
Included on the IU Electronic Records Home Page are:
1) Final Report to NHPRC, April 1998
2) Methodology Statement, Latest Version, April 1998
3) Application of Methodology - Functional Analyses
4) Application of Methodology - Identification of Transactions
5) Application of Methodology - Review of Information Systems
6) Application of Methodology - Evaluation of Information Systems
7) Application of Methodology - Recommendations to Improve Systems
8) Indiana University Version of Pitt Functional Requirements, April, 1998
9) Indiana University Version of Pitt Metadata Specifications, April, 1998

As to future activities related to our work, I will be seeking internal
funding to continue testing the methodology and the revised Pitt model for
evaluating information systems. As I say in the final report, I think the
Pitt model has great potential. However, in my estimation, the model and
our methodology designed to implement the model still require more field
testing. With this goal in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to
encourage those of you reading this announcement to consider field testing
our methodology and the Functional Requirements model, either the Pitt
version or our revised version. If you have any interest in this, please
contact me. I would be glad to discuss ways in which we might
collaborate.

The Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Warren Horton,
today announced that Kinetica will be the name used for the group of
services being developed by the Library's Networked Services Project.

Kinetica is derived from 'kinetic' with its connotations of motion, energy,
and speed. The name was chosen to reflect the dynamic nature of the
services which are currently being developed and of services which are
developed in the future to meet the changing needs of Australian libraries.

The syllables 'kin' and 'net' emphasise the commitment of the new service to
supporting co-operation and resource sharing within the Australian library
community, while the final letter 'A' stresses the Australian aspect of the
new service.

Kinetica will feature in all future announcements and presentations about
the services being developed by the Networked Services Project. Design work
has commenced and a new logo will be revealed in the near future.

Services being developed by the NSP Implementation Project will now be
called the Kinetica Search Service, Kinetica Cataloguing Service and the
Kinetica Document Delivery Service.

The Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Warren
Horton, has just sent this message to all National Library staff. I am
forwarding it to nsp-l and abn-l subscribers for information.

********************8

The purpose of this message is to inform you that negotiations between
the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand and CSC Australia
about the NDIS Project have concluded, and the Project is terminated.
Some details of the settlement are confidential, but I can tell you that
CSC will be paying $A9,000,000 to the two Libraries, to be divided
equally between us.

This has been a long process. The two National Libraries, joint partners
in the NDIS Project, entered into negotiations with the prime
contractor, CSC Australia, to terminate it on 20 December 1996. These
negotiations, and a Mediation under the NDIS Agreement provisions in
September 1997, were unsuccessful. The Libraries then moved to the
Arbitration process allowed under the Agreement. The Arbitration proper
would have commenced on 25 March, but the parties entered settlement
negotiations after a preliminary conference on 18 March.

We will now take action to terminate the Joint Venture Agreement of 1994
with the National Library of New Zealand, formed for the purposes of the
NDIS Project.

This has been a difficult time for the Library, and I want to thank all
staff who have been involved in the NDIS termination negotiations since
December 1996 for their hard work. Particular thanks are due to David
Toll, who has been very actively involved with me throughout the process
leading to this settlement.

I also want to again thank those who participated in the very successful
NSP process last year, leading to the recent announcement of our
contract with IBM Australia and IBM GSA for the AMICUS system.
Intorduction of this service will be a landmark for resource sharing
among Australian libraries.

Early this year, IFLA registered www.ifla.org as an Internet domain name.
This new address is now to be considered the only address for IFLANET.
The site's previous address---www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/---is still in
operation, but will be phased out over the next two and a half months. At
that time, all requests to the old address will be redirected to
www.ifla.org.

As part of the domain name registration, IFLANET has also been moved to
its own logical server. Up until this time, IFLANET has been a
subdirectory of the National Library of Canada's Web server (hence the
address www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/). While IFLANET still physically resides on
the same machine at the National Library, all requests are now handled by
its own dedicated Web server software. This move simplifies, among other
things, the compilation of usage statistics.

In this new environment, "www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/" has been replaced by
"www.ifla.org/" All other aspects of IFLANET URLs remain the same. For
example, the URL for the Section on Information Technology under the old
scheme is:

http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/VII/s21/sit.htm

Using the new scheme, it is:

http://www.ifla.org/VII/s21/sit.htm

Notice that the Web server address has changed to www.ifla.org and that
the /ifla/ directory has been removed.

Both URLs forms currently work, but as mentioned above, this will only be
true for a limited time. In mid-August, all calls to URLs using the
www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/ form will receive a forwarding message alerting
users to the new address.

I am pleased to announce the formal establishment of _The Next
WAVe(sm)_, a new clearinghouse devoted to Auditory Browsing in Web
and non-Web databases. The URL for _The Next WAVe(sm)_ is:

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Wave.htm

I believe that the projects, research, products and services profiled in
_The Next WAVe(sm)_ will be of interest to librarians and computer
scientists alike who seek to enhance access to Web information sources
as well as information found in conventional database systems.

For those who have limited knowledge about Auditory Displays, I
strongly recommend reading any and all of the excellent papers from the
first international conference on auditory display organized by the
International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD).

I am particularly interested in projects in Assistive Technology as
well as auditory or multimodal access in computer interface and the use
of sound is data mining and Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD)
[For information about DM and KDD, see my Four-T-Nine-R(sm) project at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/4T9R.htm]

_The Next WAVe(sm)_ is the second in a series of three planned
clearinghouses devoted to Sensory Information Navigation (SIN) [:-].
_The Next WAVe(sm)_ complements _The Big Picture_, my
clearinghouse devoted to Information Visualization at available at

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/BigPic.htm

As always, Any and All suggestions, comments, critiques, queries,
questions and/or contributions are most welcome.

The Digital Government program provides "an immediate opportunity for the
broad connection of information services providers and research
communities", and I'd like to encourage you to get involved.

I highly recommend your looking at the report "Toward a Digital Government
in the 21st Century", by Herbert Schorr and Salvatore J. Stolfo
(http://www.isi.edu/nsf/) that is referred to in the Digital Government
program annoucement, as it provides good "pointers" and "triggers".

Note: Full proposal deadlines have changed; see the KDI home page
(http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/kdi/)for details. For proposals encompassing more
than one KDI component, the deadline is determined by the primary
component, indicated by the choice of organizational unit -- KDI/KN,
KDI/LIS, KDI/NCC -- at the top of the cover sheet in FastLane.

The European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) presents "The
Preservation Map of Europe" a virtual directory of organisations working in
the preservation field within Europe. This map includes detailed
information about preservation practice in European countries and can be
found at EPIC, the internet site of the ECPA.
[http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/ecpatex/map]

Goal of the project

The project was funded by the European Commission (DG X) and aims to map
preservation policy and practice in Europe with the intent to stimulate the
flow of information. With this survey a better picture will emerge of what
is being done and in which area cooperation is possible and necessary.
Eventually, this will stimulate the development of joint projects and more
targeted research.

What is the Preservation Map?

The preservation map is a virtual directory of organizations working in the
preservation field in Europe containing detailed information such as
addresses, E-mail and telephone numbers of relevant organizations. Besides
this factual information, it gives a short description of the organization
and its preservation policy and activities. The map also lists important
preservation projects and training courses for staff. Over the last year,
the ECPA has collected information for the map by sending out
questionnaires, general appeals for information and letters with specific
questions.

At this moment information about the majority of countries in Europe is
available on the Internet. The map now includes: Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom,
Ireland, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Italy,
Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary and
the Czech Republic. Work on the project continues and the missing countries
will be included as soon as possible. With a special search mode viewers
can get answers to their specific questions about preservation in Europe.

Send us information about your organisation!

To make a directory of all large organizations in the field throughout
Europe has proved to be an extensive project that cannot be done without
the input of others. Work on the project continues and the ECPA asks for
your help in completing the survey. Please send us information or updates
about your country, organization, projects and training facilities to:

A Queensland Parliamentary Committee (the Legal, Constitutional and
Administrative Review Committee) tabled a report in parliament today
recommending new privacy laws for Govt held information. The report also
discusses surveillance, smart cards, electronic commerce, health
information, genetics and the media. The report discusses privacy in the
private sector, but the major receommendation is limited to the public sector.

Not many details at this stage (sorry).

The Report will "be on the web next week" at
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/committees/

This exercise is the preliminary step to gathering and considering actual
"best practices" in implementing and using particular standards for
networking particular bodies of information and for maximising their
usefulness.

The second resource page is a revised set of references to resources and
initiatives on the preservation of digital resources.

Both of these resources are recommended and will be linked to from the
NINCH website.

Those on this list might be interested in a report produced in February by the
UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology entitled: "Electronic
Government - Information Technologies and the Citizen". The report can be found
online (pdf format) at: http://www.parliament.uk/post/egov.htm

My apologies for any duplicative email on this as I am posting it on other
lists.

I have been requested by one of my clients, the United Nations Archives and
Records Management Section (ARMS), to make this posting. The UN is engaged in
(subject to budget approval of each stage) what could be a series of projects
related to the planning and implementation of one or more digital archives
systems. UN/ARMS is interested in communicating with other user organizations
that have had experience in the planning or implementation of digital archives
to learn what firms and products they have made use of and how they have
fared, as well as with firms with the appropriate experience and skills to
undertake such projects.

As the result of an earlier Request for Proposals (RFP) bid evaluation process
last year, I was asked to undertake the first of these projects. It involved
the drafting of a Request for Information (RFI) and a Statement of Work (SOW)
for a subsequent RFP. The RFI will be used as input to the process of
selecting firms to receive the RFP. Please understand that this posting is not
a way of helping me to do my job. I have completed my work and concluded this
initial project contract and have made my own recommendations to the client
already. Rather, any further insights that readers are willing to share with
the UN will be purely to the benefit of the UN which plans to advertise the
RFI very shortly.

The UN is interested in gaining insights that other users with planning (the
next stage project) or implementation (subsequent stage project(s)) experience
in digital archives are willing to share with the ARMS. The RFI is aimed at
finding user organizations with experience in digital archives and related
firms with the experience and skills to evaluate alternative architectures for
one or more digital archives in the New York-based UN Secretariat, and
possibly including several other New York-based UN offices and agencies. As
part of the UN s administrative reform program, it is considering various
services as candidates for common delivery among the NY-based units. Archives
and records management services are being seriously considered for this
treatment under the "Common Services" program.

The three main architectures to be evaluated in the next (planning) project
are: (i) a physically and logically centralized digital archives; (ii) a
physically distributed and logically centralized virtual archives; and (iii)
a hybrid architecture that would combine features of the first two models
depending on business process and/or organizational criteria. Since a
distributed architecture features heavily in two of the models, the UN is
particularly interested in communicating with user organizations (and firms)
that have planned or implemented such models and to learn their experience
with distributed computing, especially for ARM purposes. Since it is believed
that a combination of object management, records management, IT integration
and economic/financial analysis skills will be required, the UN expects that
it will be necessary to engage a partnership of firms to do this work. The UN
is interested to learn to what extent this also has been the experience of
other users or if there are indeed firms that have such a combination. The UN
plans to electronically publish its RFI/RFP internationally very shortly,
including possibly on my WWWpage.

Anyone wishing to share experiences as noted above or to obtain a copy of the
RFI may do so by email directly to the UN ARMS at <arms@un.org>.

NEW STUDY SHOWS TREMENDOUS GROWTH IN USE OF LIBRARIES FOR
INTERNET ACCESS

The use of public libraries for Internet access has increased by
more than 500 percent since 1996, according to the second annual
MCI LibraryLINK study released today. The study also shows that
public libraries are the most common "alternative" point for
Internet access.

According to the press release, the number of people who accessed
the Internet from their public library increased 86 percent since
January 1997. While home, work, and school remain the most common
places for people to access the Internet, sixteen percent of the
respondents in the MCI study had accessed the Internet through an
"alternative" access point. Of that sixteen percent, almost half
had used the public library as their "alternative" access point.
By the year 2000, MCI's data suggests that number will nearly
double.

The MCI study was based on a random telephone survey of U.S. and
Canadian residents, asking 3,241 Internet users where they log on
to the Internet. More information on the MCI study is available
at
http://www.mci.com/news/news-news/top-headline-892649988.shtml.
More information about the LibraryLINK program is available from
the LibraryLINK at http://www.librarylink.com.

This document may be circulated freely
with the following statement included in its entirety:

This article was originally published in
_LIBRES: Library and Information Science
Electronic Journal_ (ISSN 1058-6768) September, 1998
Volume 8 Issue 2.
For any commercial use, or publication
(including electronic journals), you must obtain
the permission of the Editor-in-Chief:
Kerry Smith
Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia
E-mail: kerry@biblio.curtin.edu.au

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